Heart of Fates
by EvilCheesecake
Summary: The power to instantly move anywhere within sight and nothing left to lose. For Morgan, this can only lead to trouble.
1. Part 1: Dantez

Morgan was a blinker – very handy for an amateur thief. The ability to snap from place to place came as naturally as catching a ball to him. Provided he could see a way to a place, he could be there in an instant. With only a little logic and careful thought, he had even learned to blink across solid objects.

From an early age, Morgan realised that not much about his ability helped him save others. He had been forced to stand powerless and watch his mother slowly fade into death. For all his searching, he had never found his father after he had left to tend the farm that day and never returned.

Realisation that the world owed him nothing dawned on him once he gave up the search. Only concerned with himself, Morgan stole at first to eat, and later to inflict the same sense of loss on others as he felt in himself.

That was, until the day that everything changed.

It was the day of his biggest heist: stealing the very kingdom for himself. If he could lay his hands on the Sceptre of Dantez, he could rightfully claim the throne. And if anybody deserved the riches of a kingdom, it was him.

He had planned it down to a tee. Having acquired plans of the cathedral vaults, it was just a simple matter of practicing blind jumps of a certain distance. He knew the guards' routes and the blind spots. He had even managed to acquire a complete guest list for the ball that was taking place on the day, in case he had to resort to his backup escape plan. He wasn't going to end up trapped under one of the infamous damping veils that the cathedral guards wore and used to restrain magically adept intruders.

Morgan looked up at the sky and saw that the sun was just about to pass between the two steeples of the Sun Cathedral. He knew that the guests would be finishing their lunches and about to parade out into the square where they would watch the elaborate fire-dances performed in the Square of Rays, which was slowly being filled with the focussed light of the noonday sun. It was almost impressive, but Morgan had seen the blueprints of the building and knew that it had all been achieved with simple architecture.

He looked to the far end of the square. As the wave of radiance met the buildings at the far end of the square, he closed his eyes and threw his mind forward exactly twelve feet.

He felt the usual rush of air and saw the flash of energy through his eyelids. When he felt still again, he opened his eyes. Accurate as ever, he was standing in the alcove at the side of the corridor that he was expecting to be in.

Knowing that he needed to conserve energy in case of a long jump, he made his way along the passage on foot. He turned a corner and began counting his steps, quickening his pace slightly so as to reach his destination before the approaching patrol.

_Twenty_, he thought to himself, and came to a sudden halt. Footsteps sounded all too loud in his ears as their producer approached. Forcing himself to calm down, he concentrated on making the next jump without burying himself in a wall.

"Hey, you! Stop there!"

Ignoring the shouts of the oncoming guard, Morgan pushed his mind downwards through the floor. He felt the movement of a well-thrown veil as it arrived in the place where his head should have been just as the flash happened.

Immediately, he knew something was wrong. The jump had felt far more draining than a simple five-foot drop should have been. The countermagic aura of the veil was interfering with his flash-magic. He applied a greater force to his motion and shot down through the ground, travelling several feet further than expected.

He was in a completely different place from that which he was expecting. Everything felt wrong in his head – the brief influence of the veil had shifted the boundaries of his power just enough that he knew that the precision he needed for this job was lost to him. But even so, he had to try. The rewards were too great, and he might never have another chance.

Morgan took in his surroundings. He was in the cloakroom of one of the guest rooms. Judging by the colours of the furnishings, all of which were a fantastic purple, suggested that it was a female chamber.

He knew that the vault that contained his prize was a few floors below him, but it was surrounded by earth on every direction. Without being able to find his location more precisely, a blind jump into the lower floors would probably leave him buried alive, his body sharing its space with mud and roots. He had no desire to find out if it would be fatal.

A noise came from the bathing room off to one side of a chamber. The female occupant was about to enter the room that Morgan had found himself in. A glimpse of her face would be enough to give him a room number and a clue to his position. But what was she doing down here in the middle of the Prayer of Passing?

She emerged and Morgan held back a gasp. The woman had brilliant blue skin and her head was elongated backwards. She was not dressed in the pure white veils of visitors to the Cathedral. Everything about her, even her species, was wrong for this place.

"You...," she whispered. "I recognise your face."

Morgan decided that it was time to go. He ran for the door and wrenched it open, pulling back as he realised that four guards were about to enter the room from the other side. He slammed it shut in their faces and rested his body on it to keep them out.

The blue-skinned woman was still staring at him.

"I have no business with you," he told her. "Is there another exit from this room?"

"I cannot help you. Unless..."

The guards began to pound on the door.

"Are you hurt, Sage Wohlan? We were distressed at your absence from the Square."

"I am fine. Leave us, please." She approached Morgan and lowered her voice. "I sense that you flee from many things, not all of which are in this cathedral. I give you this charm in the hope that it may help you find peace. Now flee, wanderer."

Morgan was not going to wait for another misfortune to fall upon him. He gathered all of his energy, including a surprising boost from the charm, and prepared to move himself as far as he could. He didn't care about the direction.

He faced the sage one more time. "Thank you," he whispered, and threw himself through the walls of the cathedral and beyond.

And suddenly, everything turned to blackness.


	2. Part 2: Fate

Morgan opened his eyes.

He had been placed in a bed in the centre of an extensive chamber. It was full of priceless artefacts, some of which whirred and span quietly. Resisting the urge to steal some of the smaller items until he knew more about the place where he had arrived, he laid back in the bed.

He suspected that he should feel tired, considering the mammoth effort he had expended. On the contrary, he had never felt more awake. A great surge of power had entered his core, giving him a greater sense of the world around him.

That was what made him feel uneasy.

Even though he had never realised it before, the background of white mana in the kingdom of Dantez had become natural to Morgan. He was attuned to the communal nature of his home, so the mechanic and controlled nature of this plane grated on his subconscious.

Morgan knew that he had travelled far, but in fact, he had no idea of the true separation he had imposed on himself.

It was several hours later when a knock sounded on the door to the chamber. When he opened it with a slight air of irritation, he came face to face with another of the blue-skinned creatures.

"You would be the blinker that Sage Wohlan encountered on the plane of

Lumia. If you seek answers, follow me."

Morgan followed the messenger down several twisting passages. There was no way that he could remember the way back to the chamber on his own. Fortunately, he had nothing that he would need, either here or in Dantez.

They emerged into a grand hall, in the centre of which sat a hard-faced man, blue-skinned like every person that Morgan had seen here. As he entered the hall, the man rose and came to greet him.

"Greetings, sir, and welcome to the Heart of Fates. Sit down, and allow me to answer your queries. Judging from the odd looks that you are giving me, you have not met our kind before.

"We are Vedalken, a race not dissimilar from yours. We are, however, of slightly sharper mental ability, which naturally makes us ideal for monitoring a project as large and complex as this. But I will come onto that later. Would you care for a cup of tea?"

Morgan accepted, still slightly bewildered by the size of the hall. He had never had the social standing to receive a cup of tea before, but as he drank it, he felt his troubles begin to melt away.

He turned to the Vedalken, his mind buzzing with questions.

"How far am I from the Sun Cathedral?"

"I am afraid, my friend – Morgan is your name, yes? – that you are farther from your home than you could ever imagine. Having investigated your background, though, I would not suspect that you are too disappointed. What do you know of the Spark?"

"Only that it is possessed by those with great power. I know only of one who may have the level of power to wield it – Horantir, the tyrant of Dantez."

"It seems you are a little confused," the sage replied as he sat back in his chair. "The spark is not given to those with power but is rather a great source of it. It gives the wielder several abilities and enhances any magical power they may have before it is awakened. Most significantly it allows those who own it to move vast distances between worlds – not unlike your own journey here."

It took a minute for this statement to sink in, but when it did, the realisation caused Morgan to leap from his chair in shock.

"You don't mean to say that..."

And now it all made sense. The great burst of power that he had felt as he hurtled across Dantez and beyond, which he had assumed had come from the bracelet, had been the awakening of his spark. Perhaps that was the origin of his blinking in the first place.

But there was still something wrong. When he had been spotted by Sage Wohlan in the Sun Cathedral, she had clearly recognised him. Why would she want to help him? More importantly, how did these Vedalken know so much about him?

He faced the sage again.

"Who are you, and how do you know my name?"

The Vedalken set his teacup down on a nearby table.

"I am Rodal, the tenth Master of the Heart of Fates. Because of the nature of my work, I know more about you and what you will become than even yourself." He rose from his chair and took two paces towards Morgan.

"Follow me and I will show you."

They proceeded to a booth in the corner of the grand hall. Rodal stepped aside and allowed him to enter. Once they were both inside, with plenty of room to spare, the door swung shut on its own. Rodal pressed three of the numbered keys and there was the smallest of jolts. "Transporter couples," explained Rodal, "swapping positions with each other almost instantly. They use similar methods to your spark."

They stepped out into a similar-looking corridor. Morgan began to wonder how large this building had to be in order to require three-digit codes for its transport devices.

The third door on the left was open and Rodal headed for it. A pair of white-clad Vedalken passed them and inclined their heads, each whispering a litany of praise for their Master. All of the mysticism in this place was grating on Morgan, who wondered how easy it would be to just close his eyes and travel to somewhere less oppressive. But he needed answers.

He followed Rodal into the room and all the holiness vanished as he was confronted by a bank of complicated holoprojectors that were each being manipulated by several studious Vedalken. Some displayed images of people or buildings, others were showing wastelands or vast expanses of space and a few were showing complicated charts.

"What you see here is but a minute fraction of the vast project that has been conceived in this great palace of wisdom. These devices each control the fates of an entire kingdom for around the next year."

This was an obvious shock to Morgan. "Does this mean that all actions are predetermined?"

"In a way, yes. But we choose actions for each person based on what is best for the Multiverse and also in accordance with their previous actions and decisions." Rodal turned to a Vedalken to his left and gave him a hushed comment. The recipient of the Master's wisdom bowed deeply and made several changes to the projector he was working with.

Having made sure that the universe was in order, Rodal moved through the room to another that looked depressingly similar.

"You may be particularly interested in this bank," he said as he indicated four projectors along one wall of the room. "The staff of these units have been trusted with the fates of the Kingdom of Dantez."

Morgan peered closer and wished that he could understand what the interweaving lines and spheres meant.

Rodal chuckled. "I can assure you, young planeswalker, that even if these machines were simple enough for you to understand, you would not find any information about yourself. Interplanar exploits such as yours would require an entire device to plot."

"Can I see that?"

"We can offer you more than that. Would you like a short scene of your future implanted in your mind?"

In hindsight, perhaps Morgan should have considered the bleakness of his past and whether his future could be any better. However, he did not get a chance to contemplate this issue until he had been secured on the implanting rig, by which time his fate was already sealed.

Rodal himself was at the control platform, some ten feet behind Morgan. The irritatingly constrictive head restraint prevented him from seeing what the Master was up to.

"You should be aware that the knowledge of one's own future can damage the nerves of the brain, particularly if the knowledge we give you pertains to an event that later is removed from our plans. If you allow me to implant an event from the past first, I can better locate the areas that will be harmed the most."

Morgan grunted his agreement and tried to relax his body.

After a few seconds of silence, a loud grinding noise came from the ceiling of the room. Several panels drew back and a vicious-looking pointed mechanism slowly began to descend. It stopped mere inches from Morgan's forehead.

A bright flash caused Morgan to snap his eyes tightly shut, but an image began to develop in his mind. It was a room that was slightly familiar – the grand hall that he had sat in with Rodal less than an hour ago. However, he was looking out from the seat that the Master had sat in, towards another face that Morgan was less pleased to see.

Horantir.

"...the risks associated with the seizing of a kingdom can be reduced." The voice of Rodal felt like it was coming from the middle of Morgan's head. "For a price, that is."

The tyrant gave the thinnest of smiles. "I can see that a peaceful transition of kingship would be desirable. If I were to donate to you, say, the cost of your next year's work..."

Morgan heard a little chuckle inside his head. Clearly, this statement had amused Rodal. "Our projected costs for the next year are somewhat astronomical. I do not think for one second that you have anything close to what you are offering me."

"Well, I do have some very rich backers who would hate to see me deposed from the throne that I am about to acquire. What length of time would such a sum provide?"

"We can reduce the chance of your deposition to around 0.1 per cent over the next forty years, once the fee has been paid. However, we can never guarantee total safety of any future due to tiny errors in projection – you can imagine that over forty years, these things can mount up."

"Naturally. Forty years should be more than sufficient to achieve our goal." Horantir stood up and extended his hand to the Master. "Simply provide a bill which I can present to my associates and we will pay presently."

The image began to fade, and the impression of Rodal's voice appeared in Morgan's mind.

_You understand now that this is regrettably unavoidable. You are a threat that has slipped through our defences, and in order to keep our significant payment we must deal with you._

Suddenly, there was a massive pressure on Morgan's consciousness.

_I wish there was some other way._

His mind gave way under the force and information streamed into it like a lance of searing agony. He saw flashes of events, some of which were familiar from his own past and others that he had no recollection of. Every moment of his past and his future flashed past his eyes and burned itself into his mind.

Just as suddenly, the torrent stopped.

Morgan knew immediately that he had changed completely. He expected to be dead – in fact, he should have been. But he only felt more powerful.

He stared at the bonds on his arms and legs and willed them to snap. They fell away and he felt the restraint fall off his head.

Rodal was staring at him with wide eyes. He was clearly expecting a different result, and backed away as Morgan developed an aura of blue fire and moved towards him.

"Yes," the thief said, with a dangerous gleam in his eye. "I understand perfectly."


End file.
